


Marvel at flowers you'll have made

by CaffeineChic



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), F/M, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Spouses, M/M, author has worked a flower theme to death, experimental word count, they love each other they're just so terrible at talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 07:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineChic/pseuds/CaffeineChic
Summary: They'd made a soundless language. Clever humans, coming up with messages that weren't words. His tongue knotted itself around vowels and consonants. This one was better.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64
Collections: Promptposal





	Marvel at flowers you'll have made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EveningStarcatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveningStarcatcher/gifts).



> For [EveningStarcatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveningStarcatcher/pseuds/EveningStarcatcher)
> 
>   
> The GO events server held a prom event so I have the pleasure of gifting this to Star, who wanted something soft.

_Daffodils - yellow:_ unrequited love  
_Spider Flowers:_ elope with me  
_Tulips - Red:_ undying love  
_Edelweiss:_ courage, devotion  
_Roses - red and white:_ united  
_Balsams:_ ardent love  
_Laurestines:_ i die if neglected

_one hundred._

They'd made a soundless language. Clever humans, coming up with messages that weren't words. His tongue knotted itself around vowels and consonants. This one was better. The angel only cared for words. Crowley could say what he liked without saying anything.

Aziraphale's shop had been open 50 years today - Crowley's heart, _embarrassingly_ many more than that.

(Heart valves only work in one direction. It's to keep you alive.

He knew what he was saying. Knew what he was feeling. Knew it only ran one way. It might kill him.)

The bouquet passed from his hands to Aziraphale's. Their fingers brushed.

**

_two hundred._

They are, she thinks, inexorably happy. The angel looks ridiculous and the child is constantly sticky. But - they're succeeding.

The end of the world is coming and they're holding it back with their bare hands and a small boy.

Crowley caught the edge of the angel's smile and pulled it upwards with her own.

A dozen spider flowers sprung up unbound.

"Did you know that Victorians used flowers to send messages?" He asked.

"No," she lies - she knows what she's asked with the florets. A dozen more. She asks again.

And suddenly, a truth sprouts on her tongue and demands access to the air - "I've been talking at you for years."

She'd sunk her roots in across 200 years. Scattered a trail of petals across their days for him - all leading to her door.

(He had held her hands at the bottom of the garden two nights previous. Squeezed, said nothing. 

Red tulips had sprung up behind his head. 

He hadn't seen. 

She'd kissed him, softly, once, in the pale light of the moon.)

"We can't." He snapped a miracle down - a small explosion of white.

"Edelweiss, angel? You're ridiculous." 

But when she says it, it sounds like "I'll wait."

***

_three hundred._

Crowley sank his hands into the soil, irriguous and rich. Worked the earth with his palms, his fingers. Transferred seeds and hungry rooted saplings to new homes. Watched them settle and grow. He shouted less but the discipline remained, they knew what was expected, they knew better than to fail him.

He was done failing too. But not trying - he was forever trying.

He was covered in dirt. His knees, his shirt, the beds of fingernails. He'd slithered up from the earth. He grew life in it now.

He'd set his own roots too. Anchored into the ground. A steady place. He feasted on it.

(His heart beat slow, consistent.

One directional valves. Bi-directional feelings. He was flourishing.)

All around him, verdant and lush, greens and colours and _alive_.

He heard the back door of the cottage open, an angel emerged to the light of day, haloed in the glowing sun. He tilted in Aziraphale's direction.

Crowley grinned and balsams sprung from nothing. He still held his tongue when words wouldn't carry the weight. At least now it felt like a choice. He could speak in whatever language he chose.

"Ardently?" Aziraphale feigned the most ridiculous surprise. Aziraphale understood him perfectly. He always had.

Yes. Ardently. Earnestly. Reverently.

He sunk his hands up to his wrists. Buried his bones in fertile soil and breathed.

Laurestines burst up and out, punctuating his playful pout, underscoring the glint in his eyes. Uncovered now, as nearly always, in this place they had made a home.

"Ever so dramatic, my dear." An angelic hand ran through his hair, scratched at his scalp. He leaned into it slowly, content. Cared for. Caring in return.

"No neglect shall befall you on my watch."

The serpent of Eden craved answers and assurance.

( _i do_ had suited both.)

***

_three hundred._

They'd made a soundless language. Clever humans. Words had always been his strength, most of them at his fingertips now. He was proud of the shop. He tried not to think it a sin. He had _intended_ to sell the books. It was the intent that mattered, wasn't it?

The shop had been open 50 years today. He had made exactly two sales. He was still annoyed about both. He tried not to be.

The bouquet passed from Crowley's hands to his. They were the colour of the sun.

He felt bold.

His index finger touched, for one second, two, against the thin skin of Crowley's wrist. His nail scratched it lightly.

Daffodils. They were beautiful - for a moment that stretched like hope.

Then. He remembered what could be said without words.

He heard them.

Unrequited love.

(They are, and always have been, two sides of the same coin.

Their points of view aren't always in the same direction.

 _My love for you is unrequited. I know._ \- a demon says

 _Your love is unrequited. You should know._ \- an angel hears.)

When he thought of Crowley, in the dying dusk of day, before the night rose fully - it settled his human-shaped bones, stilled the jitters in his fingers.

He finds it hurts. But it is not unbearable. An ache when he moves, the cartilage in his joints sore with longing. He was made to love. Reciprocity was not mandated as necessary for it. Still, best not to think of it. Best perhaps, not to move.

Sit.

Read.

Watch the flowers.

It had felt beautiful for a moment.

It was foolish. He was being foolish. He rubbed a petal between forefinger and thumb. Plucked it loose. _He loves me no-_

The flowers lived three weeks longer than nature should have allowed.

**

_two hundred._

"Did you know that Victorians used flowers to send messages?"

"No." 6000 years and she still thinks he can't tell when she's lying. He smiles and she matches it.

Two dozen spider flowers - _elope with me._

"I've been talking at you for years."

She's wrong to think he hasn't been listening. But. He supposes she's right, in a way. Willfully ignoring was hardly a superior position to be standing on. The view from up high wasn't magnificent.

Aziraphale had thought his love was unrequited, unwanted. And then...the years had come and so had more flowers, dense with colour and sentiment.

He had panicked. His tendons had tightened, his fingers had twisted - all wrung hands and furrowed brow and two silences had met and made such a clang.

But now, in this truth dressed in disguises. They were happy.

(He had held her hands at the bottom of the garden two nights previous. Squeezed, said nothing. 

Red roses, white, had sprung up behind her head. She hadn't seen. 

She'd kissed him, softly, once, in the pale light of the moon.)

"We can't." (Not yet). A snap pulled down.

"Edelweiss, angel? You're ridiculous." She says, but he hears it - "I'll wait."

*

 _one hundred._

He opened the back door to the sight of Crowley kneeled in soil, tending.

Crowley smiled a flourish of balsams into existence.

Aziraphale was fluent, now, in everything Crowley had to say.

"Ardently?" He knew it, he felt it, he returned the sentiment.

He watched as Crowley's fine boned wrists submerged into the loam.

Laurestines manifested.

"Ever so dramatic, my dear." He trailed his hand through loose red strands, scratched his nails against the scalp.

"No neglect shall befall you on my watch."

The Guardian of the Eastern Gate did not break promises.

(vows, either)

His joints no longer ached.

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to both alias424 and [Anti_Kate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate) for suggestions and edits. 
> 
> i really wanted to give myself a weird challenge with the word count limit per section, and i'm glad i did!
> 
> i'm [over here on](caffeinechic.tumblr.com) tumblr
> 
> fic title from No Plans - Hozier


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